


all my love's wrapped in shades of red

by demonicxiconic



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: "it's 2am and martin blackwood will not be okay (or maybe he will??)", Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Mourning of Normalcy, Canon-Typical The Beholding Content (The Magnus Archives), Canon-Typical The Extinction Content (The Magnus Archives), Established Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Martin Blackwood Needs a Hug, Poetry, Season/Series 05, also my working title was, barely any beta we die when we are perceived like peter lukas, canon typical martin waiting around in horrible wastelands as jon takes statements, hope? in my eyepocalypse? it's more likely than you think, thats not a tag but it should be, this is the first tma thing ive finished but there's more on the way!, uhhh cant think of any more tags i'll add them later, unbearable fluff at the end after martin cries a little, which tells you a lot about it already
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-02
Updated: 2021-01-02
Packaged: 2021-03-12 13:20:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,794
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28511073
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/demonicxiconic/pseuds/demonicxiconic
Summary: Martin has a quiet few minutes while Jon makes a statement in the Extinction. He looks through his notebook to pass the time.title is from buttercup by hippo campus.
Relationships: Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist/Martin Blackwood
Comments: 4
Kudos: 23





	all my love's wrapped in shades of red

_hands, ink, and a home - a poem by m.k.blackwood_

_There is a path in my heart_

_Torn by wind and by rain and by the feet of the many that have come and have seen_

_And decided that the journey was too long._

_Your hand is as calloused as your words,_

_And yet your snores are soft_

_And I wonder, not for the first time_

_Where your path ends._

_I ask of you what I cannot answer myself_

_Because how much of me is known to you?_

_How long have you tread my trail_

_Unaware of the fact that you are moving forwards?_

_The sky weeps gently against the windows_

_And even in the darkness, I can map out the planes of your face._

_This is just a rest stop_

_Just a place to nod off on your shoulder as you watch the world_

_But it still feels like a home._

_It feels like home, and like the end of a movie, and like a fist through the earth, uncertain in what will meet us when we break the surface but certain that it will be good. It feels like not today, and it feels like not yet, and it feels like writing like your life depends on it because your tale does not end here, and it feels like a love letter to all things that struggle, and it feels like home._

_The earth drinks in the fruits of its fear outside the blackout curtains_

_And I look at your battle-scarred skin._

_If this was a half-decent movie, we would be safe._

_We would be home._

_But we are still rewriting_

_We still walk along our paths_

_And so this is a rest stop_

_Where I can let my head fall heavy on your shoulder_

_And dream of the place where roads end._

_Tomorrow we will leave this place_

_These bricks and logs that have kept out the cold_

_And I will take your inkstained hand._

This is the last entry in Martin’s journal. He almost feels like laughing at it now, staring down at it in another hellhole as his boyfriend mutters prophecies into an ancient tape recorder that refuses to run out of battery. How in the hell did he manage to turn the hellscape and the prison and the fear that nags at him and clings to him like so many hands reaching up from the earth into something sweet?

 _Gently weeping_ , his ass. The Panopticon had nearly sobbed with joy that first period, the rain thudding down outside like a thousand earth-shattering footsteps. Martin would have clawed through the knit blankets of their bed had Jon, tired, traumatized, and yet still so full of a bottomless love Jon, not held his hand all through what passed for the night.

That was before they’d realized they didn’t have to sleep, of course. Martin is begrudgingly grateful for that fact, as resting in any of the places they’ve been so far seems beyond suicidal, but he cannot deny the hungry pangs in his heart when he remembers the gentle way Jon would cup his hands around first his face, then his shoulders, then finally lace his fingers between Martin’s with a quiet sigh, as close to content as he could be.

They had always slept facing each other.

Martin scuffs his boot on the ground, which is somehow both sludgy rot and dusty, hard-packed dirt, groaning internally as he feels his eyes prickle with tears. He’s been making a point not to cry since the safehouse, been crushing it all down into a tight ball in his soul so that the rip in the sky has no wretched sobs to drink in.

But now... oh, now crying seems the only thing he can do at all, and so he does, tucking his feet up onto the rusty bench where he sits and letting the tears run their course. The air of the Extinction, tacky and polluted, shudders in and out of his lungs as he remembers hot tea and holiday parties and shared smiles and _normal,_ though their definition of normal had gotten a little stretched there at the end.

His jeans are going to have damp patches for a _while_ , Martin is sure of it, and he lets the bitterness well up inside him as he adds another discomfort to the already extensive list out here. He feels a particularly embarrassing sound, choked and close to a whimper, escape his lips as he thinks _God, I just want to go home._ He is homesick and spiraling and alone in an apocalyptic world where the escape of death is no longer an option, and the metal of the warped bench digs pointedly into his side as he shifts in his seat, still sobbing quietly.

How has he not gone mad yet?

“M-Martin? Christ, I’m sorry I was gone so long, are- are you alright?”

Martin feels a watery smile creep across his face as he hears the quick, anxious footsteps approaching. Ah, that’s how.

He untucks his legs, wincing at the way they’ve cramped up, and half-smiles again at Jon, looking harried and flyaway and lovely against the bleak, trash-covered landscape. He stands, though his legs threaten to give way under the weight of the world, and takes Jon’s hands in his own. Jon still looks worried, and so Martin brushes a kiss across his temple, switching his grip on his hands so their palms are cupped together in a little triangular shape. _Here is the church, here is the steeple_ , his mind supplies, and he feels another tear of want slip from his eyes at the thought of Jon teaching a child nursery rhymes, with his no-nonsense voice and frankly concerning amount of scars.

“‘S okay. I just- got lonely, I suppose. Y-you weren’t here, so my thoughts decided they had to, um, make up for the empty space, y’know?”

Jon nods, then sighs, raising their joined hands to wipe the tear from Martin’s cheek.

“Yeah, I know.”

He adjusts his backpack, then grimaces, and Martin is suddenly aware of how sore Jon’s shoulders must be. It’s strange that that’s what his mind latches onto, but he supposes he did always create distractions for himself by helping other people.

“Do we- do we really need our bags?”

Jon looks at him as though he’s lost his mind. Which, honestly, he might have.

“I- I mean, if we don’t need food or sleep, and you can usually just, like. Know the way out of these places, doesn’t that mean-?”

“But- the torches? The tape recorder?”

Martin shoves a hand in the frankly ridiculously large pocket of his jacket, wiggling the fingers pointedly, and Jon huffs a laugh and nods as he swings the backpack around, rolling his shoulders with far too many pops as he sets it down on the bench. Martin does the same, digging out the torch that could probably be used to club someone to death he’d found in a cupboard and slipping it into his pocket, next to his dead phone. He still holds out hope that there will be a time and a place where it is different, where he will have music that isn’t singing worms and tea that doesn’t morph into spiders on his lips, somewhere where he can have a grocery list in the notes app that doesn’t include any survival tools or ritual implements.

Jon hands him his flashlight, stuffing the tape into the back pocket of his pants, and Martin smiles as he realizes Jon is still reaching out with the hand that held the flashlight.

He takes it, watching Jon stiffen in surprise, then relax, as he glances over and squeezes gently. They both stare at their bags for a moment, slumped against each other on the uncomfortable seat, and Martin can feel the last vestiges of normalcy slipping away as he sighs, then turns his back on them. Jon follows suit, and he can hear the tape recorder quietly click on from under his jumper as they begin to talk. Martin runs his thumb over a raised bit of scar tissue on the edge of Jon’s palm, and he idly wonders if writing is ever uncomfortable for him.

And that’s when he realizes the notebook is still on the bench.

He’s not sure _why_ such a surge of panic fills him at the thought of leaving it behind. All the writing that’s already in it is middlingly alright at best, and awful and flowery at worst, but something about abandoning the option to have something to do that isn’t fighting through hellscapes has him releasing Jon’s hand and sprinting back to the bench, grabbing it and stuffing it in the inside pocket of his jacket before any more of the ever-present gunk of the Extinction gets on it. The weight of it, shifting with his steps, occasionally jabbing him in the armpit with a corner, is strangely comforting, and he’s feeling mildly less anxious when he finally jogs his way back to Jon, who is standing next to what Martin assumes is the ruins of a skyscraper, looking confused.

“Sorry, I just- um, I forgot my writing notebook. And- and I know that I won’t really get the chance to really _do_ anything with it, but it’s, well. Nice to know there could be the option in the future, I guess?”

Jon nods, the corners of his mouth canting up slightly, and Martin is once again hit with the realization that he is one of the handful of people that get to live on the outskirts of the end of days, and he is completely in love, and he should probably feel bad about how giddy that makes him.

“There will be that option in the future. I’ll make sure of it.”

He takes his hand again, and they walk away from the suffering of this place, and though Martin knows there will only be more fear wherever they go next, he can’t help but hope that the path that leads home will be kinder in future.

The sky blinks down at them, and Jon presses a kiss to Martin’s jaw, a quick reminder that they are here together, a mobile home where the roof is made of the way their hands cup together.

The little triangle is not a church, he thinks. It is an arrow, pointing forwards to unknown wonders, and it is a house that he’s sure will come, in time.

The wind blows Jon’s hair back, making wild shapes with the waves of it, and he laughs, and it is a sound made for poetry.

Maybe he’ll try again on that last entry, if they get somewhere safe.

When they get somewhere safe.

**Author's Note:**

> come yell at me on tumblr @demonicxiconic :) this was the product of a couple nights with significantly less sleep than i should be getting, so if it isnt good uh. well then. in other news i have a few tma and mechs fics i'm working on rn so keep an eye out for that!


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